


Five Times Rose Tyler Didn’t Master the Art of Mascara Application

by regala_electra



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-05
Updated: 2006-09-05
Packaged: 2017-10-27 19:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regala_electra/pseuds/regala_electra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose Tyler, at several stages of her life, doesn't quite figure out how to master the art of wearing mascara properly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Rose Tyler Didn’t Master the Art of Mascara Application

5\. _Rose, what are you doing in my room?_ Mum grabs Rose’s chubby hand, deftly opening sticky fingers and takes away the mascara. Rose protests, saying it’s just a wand, but Mum insists, _Sweetheart, you’re only eight. You’re too young to play with Mummy’s makeup_. A pause. Rose draws an eternity’s worth of breaths and hopes. _Wait until you’re at least thirteen, yeah?_

4\. Twelve years old and rebellion kicks up the heels of her ratty old trainers as she stomps up the stairs. Not yet sure of herself, though, yeah, that’s a bit true, in the way she smiles nervously, passing by Mickey (he’s so much older and grown up than her!) as she makes her way back to the flat. It rained earlier and she’d been caught in it. He stares at her and starts laughing. She narrows her eyes but that only sets him off again. Maybe her makeup’s run a bit, but Shireen said she’d looked good (before the rain) and Rose believes it. She shuts up Mickey with a kiss and continues on her way, now smiling with complete confidence. Mickey’s stammering as she leaves and she thinks that she’s at least done something right, even though she doesn’t know what it is.

3\. Sixteen-going-on-seventeen, a proper adult now, really. Jimmy Stone telling her that _Yeah the eyeliner streaking back like that? It’s absolutely smashing._ What isn’t smashing is his guitar playing when he’s offstage, but she doesn’t tell him that. Rose learns it’s hard to run the mascara wand (she always thinks of it a wand, ever since she was little) through her lashes after she’s been crying. Harder still to keep it from running and it stings her eyes. She’d looked at her bank account this morning and she’s using her overdraft now. Jimmy doesn’t come back like he said - that’d he be home by five in the morning at least. So Rose starts packing, mascara streaking her face, knowing she’ll have to go crawling back to Mum.

2\. She’s either nineteen or twenty now, she’s not quite sure, but that doesn’t matter. The Doctor’s still fussing outside the door to her room, _I assure you that that the people of Woman Wept don’t care if you’re looking pretty_. She laughs it off but tells him it’ll be just another minute as she removes the mascara with a wetted tissue and starts again. She’s thinking there’s a way to combine waterproof mascara with regular mascara. It’ll be able to keep from completely drying out her eyelashes and not streaking down her face. She thinks it’ll be useful to manage both. The Doctor probably knows of a market where they could get a formula that already does that, but Rose likes her makeup from her time (so odd that she has to think of it as ‘her time’). She never masters that elusive formula. Her mascara runs like anything.

1\. Twenty-six on her passport (their passports here are coloured like rich caramel, just another quirk of living in a world that's not quite hers), but she might still be twenty-five. She’s not really all that sure but age doesn’t matter. As her superiors at Torchwood tell her, it’s the experience that counts. Which is why she’s now running her own division within Torchwood. If she could hand out cards with _Rose Tyler: Defender of Earth_ , she would. But it’s still rather hush-hush. Her first name - Rose - is on her passport. Her last name isn’t. _Um, darling, aren’t we running a tad late?_ Rose stands in front of the mirror, pulls a face as she realizes she’s smudged the mascara on her lower eyelids. She asks if it could wait just a couple of more minutes. _Well, I’m sure you could wait, but I don’t think our daughter can_. Rose screws the top of her mascara shut, stares at her rounded belly hidden beneath her billowing shirt and says, _Right then, we better go to hospital._ They don’t let you put on your makeup when you’re in the maternity ward. Rose always likes to be prepared. She’s read reports of possible alien interference at London hospitals and she wants to look her best. Smiling, she figures even if it’s a rather normal delivery, it’s still an exciting adventure to have.

0\. Thirty-nine years old on her passport and she’s mellowed the dye in her hair, settling on a dark honey blonde. Her daughter tells her that _No one like_ (the American overuse of ‘like’ has become a major ‘like’ trend in teenage London slang, a few years late in Rose’s opinion, but different dimension, after all) _ever wears that much mascara and black is like morbid_. Rose only blinks thick lashes at her daughter and says that when the director of Torchwood issues a dress code that restricts it, then she’ll listen. _Oi, hang on a tick_ , she says, grinning full out, _that’s me, isn’t it?_


End file.
